QuantumG's Blog

  The Three Amigos (Written at 3:33am) Three friends go to play in the Park.  Starting in The Matrix they spend most of their time talking about Red Dwarf and planning hijinks. One of the three has a way to communicate with a friend (the fourth Amigo) who works for the Park.  They run from agents, and plan to break into West World and rob a bank, until one day an Agent dies… for real. This Agent is controlled by the mother-in-law of the female CEO. She's old and demented but she loves to jack into The Matrix, and she's good at keeping thieves out of the Park. While chasing one of the Amigos down a spiral ramp she wraps herself in a cord and spills water on herself. It's a known flaw of that old deck. The Amigos learn about the tragedy on the subway. They discuss it in a hushed conversation. Two wants to leave - the game is over, he didn't want to kill anyone for real - but Four tells The One that they'll be arrested and charged as soon as they're out - and she ...

Ten years ago I got the welding bug. After doing a vocational training course I discovered my aptitude was essentially zero and on-the-job training was considered essential to improvement. Not actually having a welding job in order to be trained on, I did the best I could, assigning myself simple tasks and destructively testing my horrible creations. This involved buying my own welder, which was an education in itself. After about a month of ruining perfectly good scrap metal I got to the point where I was able to reliably produce all the welds I had learnt - without defects. My next purchase was a bucket pump so I could pressure test a range of creatively welded bits of steel. This a really cheap piece of kit that you can get just about anywhere, and it completely humbled me. My first attempt was two square bits of scrap welded over the ends of a very thick pipe. It was immediately obvious that all my previous welds had been of insufficient depth, spraying water everywhere at very...

We've all heard the joke. Elon says they're going to fly Commercial Crew in Q1 2020, so add Elon Time - that's mid-to-late 2020, right? 😂😬 You gotta admit, he's consistent - he always tells you the best-case situation; Subtext: if nothing goes wrong... but has that ever happened? If you count how many nods Elon makes while he answers that question and which way his eyes are pointing you can see how sure he is... How much he isn't telling you. How much you have no right to know, damn it. Let the man work! That's how you make a following. Guard your playbook, and move. Never stand still, lest they believe you've fallen over. What would have happened if 2 years ago Elon said "Look, nothing is going to happen at SpaceX until we see what the NASA Admin is going to do, so just spin your wheels and don't do anything. I'm going to work on Starlink." Probably everything we've seen in the last 2 years. Gradual improvement and - da...

In this blog we take a deep dive into the world of offworld rigs, focusing on what you can expect in the way of living conditions when taking a job in the offworld industry. OFFWORLD RIG FAST FACTS There are around 1,470 offworld industrialization rigs scattered all over the solar system, which means this role could take you anywhere from the Moon to Mars or even the asteroid belt or Mercury At any one time you will find nearly 200 people living and working on a rig You’ll rarely find a window inside Be thankful we’re not in the 1960s anymore – Before onboard wifi, engineers were restricted to just one personal phone call a week, and even that was capped to just six minutes Offworld engineering jobs require travel to some of the most remote places in the solar system, including industrialization rigs in the middle of deep space. You'll work hard offworld but be well rewarded for it - for a start, there's no cooking or cleaning to be done... What job-related ...

No-one asked, but I know a few have wondered. It's been about 2.5 years since I wrote anything about space on this blog. Why? Simply, I don't see anything changing. SpaceX and Boeing have full funding for commercial crew, and nothing has changed. Reusable first stages have arrived, and nothing has changed. Blue Origin has crossed the Karman line, and nothing has changed. More and more people are launching cubesats, and nothing has changed. Google invested a billion dollars in SpaceX, and nothing has changed. Suborbital tourism still doesn't exist. Nothing has changed. I'm still interested. I'm still engaged. I just have nothing to say. My hope goes out to those working hard to change things. Good luck.

If you're anything like me you've probably seen the Disk Not Ejected Properly message so many times that you've forgotten how annoying it is.. despite the fact that you never even wrote anything to the usb drive that you're yanking out of your Mac the operating system insists that you remove it "correctly". You're supposed to click the eject button. Why? I dunno, Apple seems to think that if you can write to it then the operating system might have written to it - and being Apple, they probably have. Well ya know what? Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. Note: this will not fix your external drive disconnecting when your Mac goes to sleep. For that problem try disabling "put hard drive to sleep when possible" in both the Battery and Power Adapter tabs of the OS energy saver settings. What appears below is a dirty hack for deliberately removing a warning that Apple insists on showing you every single time you yank out a usb stick. ...

Isn't it a bit odd that the most promising reusable launch vehicle under development today is being build by a company with a proclaimed love for heavy-lift launch vehicles? As the Falcon 9 Reusable approaches the cusp of operations, with a successful demonstration of first stage reuse expected sometime next year, SpaceX is already moving on to a methane engine - Raptor - four times as big, for a rocket - MCT - with a much larger core size. This, we're told, is Elon Musk's strategy for going to Mars and it's so much warmed over Bob Zubrin - Mars Direct, Mike Griffin - Apollo On Steroids, cargo cult of the Saturn V, stuck-in-the-1960s thinking. If you have an operational reusable launch vehicle, as SpaceX says it is their goal to have, then there's much more sensible ways to get to Mars. Come on boffins, get the lead out, let's do the math on this one. According to the best public numbers I can find , the second stage of the Falcon 9 v1.1 has a dry m...

It was Stiennon and Hoerr's space-nerd spectacular "The Rocket Company" ( now available on Kindle!) that introduced me to Kroemer's lemma: The last 40 years has seen a lot of futile effort by space enthusiasts to find the one magic product or market that will justify building a truly commercial space industry. Well, it hasn't been found, and we're tired of waiting for it. And if you accept Kroemer's lemma, it can't be done that way anyhow. Even if you guess correctly what it is that won't create a huge growth in demand for launch services so that costs come down, that demand won't -- and can't -- come into being until the cost does come down. So who is Kroemer and what is his lemma? Herbert Kroemer is a Nobel Laureate in physics who wrote, in 1995, the Lemma of New Technology : The principle applications of any sufficiently new and innovative technology always have been -- and will continue to be -- applications created by that t...

Bob has a secret. His secret is not just something he finds valuable, but something lots of other people would find valuable too. Perhaps it's a new way to make energy, or to dye wool or to build yachts. Perhaps it's just his mother's maiden name. We don't know, because it is Bob's secret. Does Bob have an obligation to share his secret with us? Can we go to Bob's house and demand he tell us his secret? Can we threaten Bob to get the secret out of him, or promise him payment for his secret and then renege? If not, why not? Alice would like to know Bob's secret, so she offers him a significant amount of money for Bob to tell her. Bob is worried that Alice will tell others, but she promises not to tell anyone else. Having heard Bob's secret, Alice wishes she had thought of it herself and would prefer no-one else to know the secret, not even Bob. This, of course, is impossible, but Bob offers the next best thing: he'll promise to never tell anyone e...

When I first heard of this proposal I was reminded of the recommendations of the Space Studies Institute to do ore processing experiments on orbit as the first step to building O'Neill colonies. They were talking about using Lunar regolith simulant in low Earth orbit, with the goal of developing the techniques to utilize the products of a future lunar mining operation, but as an asteroid resources advocate I'd always preferred to think about doing the same thing with a captured asteroid. A few years ago I wrote about colonizing a near-Earth asteroid (without moving it), with a focus on artificial gravity issues. The reality is that we don't yet know enough about the composition of any asteroids to have a decent shot at making water, oxygen, plant nutrients, or any of the other things you'd need for a space colony. We need to learn it before the colonists are sent, and having a captured asteroid to experiment on is a great way to do it. Ultimately, though, the larg...

On a recent edition of The Space Show , Jon Goff discussed a lunar analogy to the 10 year patent grant awarded to Columbus on trade with any of the lands he discovered. This follows on from the great work done by Mike Mealling at dispelling myths about Columbus' funding which, I believe, he was inspired to do after watching one of my videos . Unfortunately, I think Jon fails to convey his analogy in a convincing way. Being somewhat libertarian, Jon is a little too concerned with where the tax revenue comes from and too specific with who will receive the incentives. This may also simply be a result of the origin of the idea - the analogy to Columbus - and the attempt to describe it as such. Talking about who will be taxed to fund a government program is never popular. Even "let's tax the rich" is too specific not to leave a bad taste in the voter's mouth. Politicians have learnt that the subject is completely avoidable anyway. Talking about who will receive t...

Recently, Ken Anthony invited me to critique his work over at Planet Plots . Although I've only scratched the surface of his blog, there's not much I disagree with, and recommend the visit. The only problem, as I see it, is a lack of depth.. and a lot of hand waving. Just about anything can be explained away with "free people will figure it out". I very much agree with that sentiment, as Ken knows, but aren't we free people? Can't we figure it out? For example, take what the Mars Starter Kit page has on it. There's many links to the Open Source Ecology wiki , which is a fantastic resource, but ultimately it's still just geeks in front of the computer screen.. where's the meat? Elon Musk made a comment the other day that has stuck with me: " Making standard efficiency solar panels is about as hard as making dry wall. It's really easy. In fact, I'd say dry wall's probably harder. " The context indicates that he's talk...

Sending humans in a SpaceX Dragon v2 capsule to EML-1 or 2 is a worthwhile possible step in a 100% commercial return to the Moon. The SuperDraco thrusters to be included in the sidewalls of the crew Dragon capsule are more than capable of performing the trans-lunar injection burn, as well as station keeping at the Lagrange point, rendezvous with any preemplaced assets - such as a lander - and returning the crew to Earth. The total delta-v for such a bare bones mission to EML-2 is a mere 4835 m/s. EML-1 is similar. This is a "quick transit" 4-day trip up to EML-2, so the crew spends less time in the radiation belts. A good estimate of the dry mass of the Dragon v2 is 8000 kg. Using an isp of 320s, the initial mass in LEO is just 37344 kg, or 68% of the maximum payload mass of a Falcon Heavy. Just going to a Lagrange point with a crew on Dragon would be a momentous achievement and could be done for a mere $150M. However, it is just the first step. If we fill the remai...

As the first flight of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy in 2014 approaches more information is slowly becoming available. In a recently released NASA study , Wilhite et al revealed an estimate for the mass of the 5.2m wide hammerhead fairing. Combined with the maximum payload to low Earth orbit, it is now apparent that payloads that don't require the fairing could have an initial mass of over 55 tons. This seems sufficient to mount a single person lunar landing (and return) mission with just the one launch. For simplicity, I will assume a two ton single stage lunar lander with additional drop tanks. I'll use a self-pressurizing mixed monoprop, like NOFBX from Firestar (isp 320s). Starting in LEO the vehicle will perform three burns (3107m/s, 3140m/s, and 2890m/s), not stopping in lunar orbit and dropping tanks after each burn. Hopefully, SpaceX will kick in some PICA-X for the heat shield, which will be mounted on a Mercury-sized capsule. The lander will look much like the Od...

NASA recently announced their Gateway station for beyond LEO exploration to the wider press. This is not news to the space advocate community with articles going back to December of last year. Even so, now is the time when this concept will be received by the politicians as "new". Soon, they will be introduced to the Gateway as either being a part of their plan or something which challenges it. Many space advocates have complained that the central element of NASA's beyond exploration plan - the Space Launch System - has no payloads, or costs so much that no payloads can possibly be developed to fly on it. The obvious exception to this has been the Orion crew capsule, which is simply seen as too expensive compared to commercial crew offerings. Congress could see the Gateway station as the answer to this criticism. That would be a good thing - whether you like the Space Launch System or not. The reason is simple: there's nothing else. Up to now, the plan h...

Were you absent when the suborbital tourism movement was being coined? Did you miss the philosophy lessons? Gather 'round young ones, let's sit on the grass and discuss the beliefs that make men build planes when they really want to be building rockets. Way back in the 70s, the realization that space would never be a frontier until launch costs had been reduced led many to pin their hopes on the Space Transportation System, and later on the only surviving component: the shuttle. During the 80s, it became obvious that the shuttle would never achieve a reduction in the cost of access to space and, in fact, NASA had stopped claiming that this was the goal of that program. During the 90s, various rag-tag efforts were made to turn LEO and MEO commsat launch into a massive market which would require the kind of launch capability that only a fully reusable vehicle could service - something like the mythical DC-X that many believed was killed for challenging the Shuttle. Some say they ...

Dear Dr David Livingston and the Space Cynics , I would like to submit a Walking Eagle Award nomination for the Ad Astra Rocket company for their "Human Transportation to Mars" concept . The primary basis of my nomination is the size of the nuclear reactor proposed, but even if such a reactor and all the other support infrastructure to launch the mission from an Earth-Moon Lagrange point was available, and their propulsion technology actually worked, I think there is a very strong argument that such a fast transit decreases mission safety because it eliminates the free-return-trajectory abort mode. The only nuclear reactor the US has ever flown in space is the SNAP-10A, which produced a mere 650 watts of electrical power, from 45 kW of heat. The SP-100 reactor program, which were never flown, was to produce 100 kW of electrical power from 2 MW of heat. The Russians flew reactors which produced 3 kW to 5 kW of electrical power, and built some 40 kW reactors that were neve...

I have previously written about why space settlement is important , but just how important is it? In a recent interview Rand Simberg comments: "What risk you're willing to take is a function of what it's worth to you. In World War II, we sent up squadrons of B-17s over Germany every day - sometimes half of them didn't come back. We tried to minimize the casualties, but we didn't stop flying just because we were having huge losses. What they were doing was important, and we were willing to risk lives to do it." He was not just referring to the current government efforts at human spaceflight, but also to the growing concern with safety by private spaceflight providers. Just how important is commercial spaceflight? At a recent hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology , Rep E.B. Johnson (D-Texas) answers: "So far the only potential non-NASA market that NASA has identified for Congress are super-wealthy space tourists, and no...

The philosophical basis of copyright law is a travesty that is not worth going into here. The resultant statist defense of "intellectual property" is heavy handed and infected with cronyism because the philosophical basis is of such poverty. The typical libertarian response is to disavow any right, as such, to protection of intellectual property. I'd like to suggest this is an extreme response and describe how something akin to copyright is valid in a free market, libertarian society. The fundamental basis of libertarianism is private property. In this theory there can be no question that the correct and proper owner of work is the creator of that work. (A possible caveat is that all the inputs to the work were already owned by the creator - if you create a sculpture out of my marble, not only is that sculpture mine, I may have recourse against you for using the marble without my permission.) In terms of homesteading, the creator of a work has a greater claim than an...

Well it seems someone managed to sneak into the commercial crew office at NASA and smack them with a clue stick. Today they announced that there will be a third round of Space Act Agreements to maximize the $406M awarded for the program in FY2012. That's the way NASA sees it anyway. What this actually means is that the partners which are selected - and we're told they desire to select more than one - will be free to pursue their own goals without the burdensome oversight of the growing commercial crew office. It means that companies like SpaceX can design their Dragon capsule to service both NASA's needs and the needs of other companies like the recently announced Statolaunch without asking Mother May I? I can't wait to see the milestones.